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Crossword Help Forum
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buggslife

18th September 2019, 11:31
Hi, is this a good place to get feedback and advice on clues I'm making?

It's a present for my father-in-law but it's my first time making up clues, so I thought I'd turn to more experienced solvers for tips...

If so, I'll post my drafts here.
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ginge

18th September 2019, 12:20
Hi buggslife, there are lots of very experienced and very good solvers on this site who help parsing clues but I imagine not all may feel comfortable giving, what would no doubt be intended as, constructive criticism
a)at all
b) not knowing either the level of "ability" the intended solver (your father-in-law) has and/or your appraisal of what is a good/fair clue.
No doubt your father-in-law is an avid crossword fan hence your keenness in this matter but perhaps if you indicate what puzzles he regularly does/attempts you might get a few people willing to assist.
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ginge

18th September 2019, 12:25
Hi again buggslife, I meant to add; are you intending setting a complete crossword or just a number of clues as in a treasure trail ?
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buggslife

18th September 2019, 13:06
Hi Ginge,
Thanks - I appreciate it would be opening myself up to pretty heavy 'constructive' criticism!
Since I am a beginner - I started doing (solving) cryptic crosswords only last month having never looked at one before - I expect my attempts to be rather weak.

The lucky receiver (my father-in -law) is, indeed, very experienced but only does Telegraph crosswords.

I have focussed on Guardian based ones and can see some differences in styles already between them.

The plan is to create an entire crossword. I was hoping you get some advice on specifics as I'm trying to follow the general 'rules' or norms as far as I've understood them from reading up.
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kt17

18th September 2019, 13:26
Hi Buggslife, my recommendation would be to buy 'The Chambers Complete Crossword Companion'.

It has an introduction which lays out the fundamentals of cryptic clueing, then there is a very useful thesaurus, lastly a series of indicators.

Mine has seen a lot of use over the years.

M
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rossim

18th September 2019, 13:31
Hi Buggslife

Many years ago I started trying to compile a small cryptic crossword for the newsletter of a local club.
A dear friend (who regularly did the guardian crossword) sent me pages of constructive criticism, which I'd asked for and welcomed.

In recent years I haven't done too badly at Peer Review!

You have nothing to lose by asking for advice. You are anonymous and nobody is going to laugh at your efforts.
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ginge

18th September 2019, 13:39
Hi again buggslife, I don't need to tell you what you are attempting would be difficult enough for an advanced solver with a bit of experience in clue writing competitions such as the weekly versions of Clueless & Peer Review here or those run by National newspapers even with the assistance of some of the free software available (unless you intend making a career of this I imagine the professional packages would not be appropriate).
I assume you have already looked at free packages which will greatly assist in the creation of a grid and the required answer fill (slightly more difficult if you wish to include answers specific to or relating to your father-in-law's other interests). Once you're happy having achieved this then you will want to write the clues. I agree, it's a good idea to look at the composition of clues in puzzles to attempt to get a balance of the variety of clues that a "good" puzzle will have ie anagrams both straight and subtractive, puns, containers, double definitions, cryptic definitions, substitutions, homophones (possibly including spoonerisms), acrostics and composite combinations of those ... (this is not an exhaustive list but off the top of my head the most common to appear).
I think if you submit a thread with 40+ clues for review in a "oney" you're not likely to get much feedback but perhaps 4 at a time with a suitable preamble that you can copy and paste might elicit the type of feedback you're looking for.
Hope this is of some assistance.
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spoffy

18th September 2019, 15:20
You might find that the videos (particularly 2 and 3) on this site give you a useful introduction to cryptic clueing:

http://www.clueclinic.com/index.php/clue-movies/



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buggslife

18th September 2019, 16:13
Thanks for the great advice.

I've already tried free software for creating the grid, which seems easy.

I'll work more on some clues and post a few for feedback soon.
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